877 



SYROPULUS, SILVESTER. 



SZE-MA-TSE"EN. 



878 



The Greek text of the Commentary on Aristotle was edited by 

 Leonh. Spengel, in his 2,wayuyri Tex"*", 8vo, 1828. Bagoliui found a 

 Latin translation of a portion of the work in a manuscript, and pub- 

 lished it at Venice, 4to, 1558. The Commentaries on Hermogenes are 

 contained in the second volume of tho Aldine edition of the Greek 

 orators, in 2 vols., folio, 1508-1509, and in the 'Rhetores' of Walz, 

 vol. iv., 1833. 



He was also the author of two epigrams, one of which is printed 

 without a name in the Palatine Anthology, ii. p. 122 ; or in the edition 

 of Jacobs, iv., p. 233; the other is preserved by the Armenian philoso- 

 pher, David, and printed by Scholl. 'Geschichte der Griech.-Lit.,' 

 vol. iii. 



SYROPU'LUS, or SGUROPULUS, SILVESTER, a dignitary of 

 the Greek Church, wrote a history of the Council of Florence, which 

 was convened in 1438 by Pope Eugene IV., at Ferrara, and in 1439 

 removed to Florence. The principal business of the council was to 

 settle the differences between the Greek and Latin Churches. Syro- 

 pulus, who was present at the council, writes in a spirit of opposition 

 to the attempted union of the churches, and his work must therefore 

 be considered an ex-parte statement. 



This work was published, with a Latin translation and notes by 

 Robert Creighton, an Englishman, at the Hague, folio, 1660. Its 

 publication called forth a work on the opposite side by Leo Allatius 

 [AI.LATIUS], entitled ' Exercitationes in Creightoni Apparatum, Ver- 

 sionem, et Notas, ad Historiatn Coiicilii Floreutini scriptam k Sguro- 

 pulo, 4to, Rome, 1674. 



SYRUS, PUBL1US. [PUBLIUS STRUS.] 



SZECHENYI, STEPHAN, COUNT VON, was born at Vienna on 

 September 21, 1792, of an old Hungarian family, by whom the dignity 

 of count had been held for more than a century, and who possessed 

 great wealth and influence. In the early part of his life he served in 

 the Austrian army with distinction through the war of liberation, 

 and when that was euded^he travelled through a great part of Europe 

 to acquire a knowledge of its social and political conditions. His 

 father, who died in 1820, had been a liberal benefactor to the Hun- 

 garian National Museum, bestowing on it his valuable library and 

 unique collection of Hungarian coins. The young count followed his 

 father's example by giving much, time and attention to the real 

 improvement of his country. A few years after his father's death he 

 quitted the military service, in order to devote himself more specially 

 to the intellectual and industrial advancement of his fellow-country- 

 men. In this course his labours have been incessant, and in the 

 highest degree beneficial. To forward the maintenance of an Hun- 

 garian nationality he gave 60,000 florins (5000.) to the Hungarian 

 Academy, an institution which has become very important. In 1826 

 he formed a society for the improvement of the breeding of horses, 

 and to promote this end, in 1830, he wrote ' Ueber Pferde, Pfercle- 

 zucht, und Pferderenneu ' (On Horses, Horse-breeding, and Horse- 

 racing ). In the same year he wrote a work ' Upon Credit,' which, 

 together with his ' Licht, oder auffallende Briichstiicke und Berichti- 

 gung eiuiger Irrthumer und Vorurtheile ' (Light; or striking fragments 

 and rectifications of various errors and prejudices), gave a remarkable 

 impulse to the national movement in favour of reformation. In 1832 

 he took an influential part in the establishment of a central Hungarian 

 theatre at Pesth, and a superior school for teaching music. At the 

 same period he took a deep interest in the construction of a fixed 

 bridge (there had previously been only a floating one, of course 

 frequently unavailable) between Pesth and Ofen. For this purpose he 

 repaired to England in order to become acquainted with the necessary 

 information and details, the results of which he published in 1833, 

 ' Vorschlage zur Verbesserung ' (Proposals for Improvement), and by 

 his advice and influence the magnificent suspension bridge was con- 

 structed by W. Tierney Clarke. As early as 1826 two Englishmen, 

 named Andrews and Pritchard, obtained the privilege of running 

 steam-boats on the Danube, but though they received some en- 

 lightened support, the project would have failed had not Count 

 Szcchenyi taken it up. The great obstacle was the impediments 

 offered by rocks in the river, particularly at the Iron Gates. As royal 

 commissioner he made repeated journeys to England for information 

 and assistance as to his hydraulic measures for removing these impedi- 

 ments, and in November 1834 the first steam vessel was enabled to 

 pass safely through the dangerous passage, thus uniting Germany 

 with the Black Sea, a transit now in constant use, though capable of 

 almost indefinite extension. Count Szecheuyi also assisted in forming 

 the Austrian Steam-boat Company, to which the Austrian govern- 

 ment has given the exclusive privilege of navigating the Danube and 

 all other Austrian rivers for twenty-five years, a privilege that is now 

 likely to act injuriously if not to give rise to disputes with other 

 powers having access to the Danube from their own territories. In 

 furtherance of this project he wrote in 1836 a work 'Ueber die 

 Douauschiffahrt ' (On the Navigation of the Danube). Every other 

 project for the advancement of the industry or for the benefit of his 

 country, found in him an ardent supporter. For a considerable time 

 he was looked upon as the leader of the reform party in Hungary, 

 but he limited his reforms to objects connected with the physical 

 state only of his countrymen, and desired to introduce them through 

 theinflueuce and under the protection of the aristocracy. In this course 

 he effected much, and was appointed minister of public works in Hun- 



gary. But the reform party began very quickly to aim at ends far 

 beyond Szechenyi's contemplation. The division became marked in 

 1840 when Kossuth assumed the leadership of the more zealoua 

 reformers. Against the proceedings of this new party, in 1841 he 

 published ' Das Volk des Ostens,' writing also articles in the Hun- 

 garian journals (collected and published in 1847 as a Political Frag- 

 mentary Programme), and speaking against them in the county assembly 

 of Pesth, with much bitterness, but with little effect. When Kosisuth 

 in 1847 was named deputy for Pesth to the Diet, Szechenyi, though, 

 possessing a seat in the upper chamber, procured himself to be elected 

 a deputy for Wieselburg in order to confront him, but the eloquence 

 of his opponent, supported as it was by the passions of the people, 

 rendered his struggle as useless as it was short. In 1848 the revolu- 

 tion broke out ; the effect upon him was so violent as to affect hia 

 mind, and in October of that year it was necessary to place him in a 

 lunatic asylum at Dobling, where he has ever since continued. 



SZE-MA-TSfiKN, the name of a distinguished Chinese historian, as 

 it is spelt according to Dr. Morrison'B system of orthography for 

 Chinese word?, the spelling of Abel Rdmusat being SSEMA THBIAN, 

 and of Klaproth SziiMA-ZiAN, representing the pronunciation according 

 to the French and German systems of orthography. The words Sze- 

 Ma, which signify ' Commander of Horse,' are a surname, one of the 

 very limited number of surnames four hundred and sixty-eight in 

 all which are made to supply the needs of a population now said to 

 amount, according to the new census, to about four hundred and fifty 

 millions. Sze-Ma-Tseen was born about the year B.C. 145, in the reign 

 of the Emperor Woo-Te, of the dynasty of Han, in honour of which 

 the Chinese are still fond of calling themselves ' the sons of Han.' 



The great event, c ailed ' the Burning of the Books,' a memorable 

 epoch in Chinese history, had taken place in the year 213, B.C., when 

 the tyrant Che-Hwang-Te, of the dynasty of Tsin, had ordered the 

 general destruction of all literary and historical memorials, and 

 caused five hundred literary men to be buried alive. For a time even 

 the works of Confucius seemed to have disappeared, and it was not 

 till sixty years afterwards, that, under Wau-Te of the dynasty of Han, 

 an attempt was made to re-discover them. It theii became known that 

 an old man of the age of ninety, in a distant province, retained in his 

 memory much of the text of the ' Shoo-King,' or 'Book-Classic,' one of 

 the two historical compilations of Confucius, but he was too i'eeble to 

 write. A scribe was sent off to take the words down from his mouth, 

 but the old man pronounced so indistinctly that the scribe could not 

 understand him. His daughter alone could comprehend what he said, 

 and by her intervention at last about half of the ' Shoo-King ' was put 

 down in writing, and the rest was looked upon as irretrievably lost. 

 Great was the rejoicing therefore when about thirteen years later, in 

 the reign of Woo-Te, on pulling down an old wall, a number of 

 volumes were found in it, which had doubtless been hidden there 

 during the time of Che-Hwang-Te's proscription, and among them a 

 complete copy of the Shoo-Kicg. It was an old copy however, and 

 written in such antiquated characters, that it would have been unin- 

 telligible except for the olue supplied by the chapters already on 

 record from the memory of the old man of ninety, which were now 

 found to bo marvellously correct. By the aid of these the Shoo-King 

 was restored as it now stands, when, if a new destruction of the books 

 were to take place, it might be recovered from the memories of 

 myriads. Encouraged by the recovery of so many lost treasures, the 

 Emperor named a commission to endeavour to form a collected series 

 of annals of China, and as president of it appointed Sze-Ma-Tan, the 

 father of Sze-Ma-Tseen and himself descended from a family of 

 historians. Sze-Ma-Tseen, who was then of the age of five, thus grew 

 up in an atmosphere of learning and literature ; at the age of ten he 

 was himself able to read the ' Shoo-King,' and he became a close 

 student of its contents. His attention was particularly attracted by the 

 account given in it of the vast works of draining and canal-making 

 executed by the Emperor Yu ; and when he was of the age of twenty, 

 he took a journey to those parts of China where their remains existed, 

 for the purpose of comparing their actual state with the account given 

 in the narrative. Not long after, he was summoned from a military 

 expedition to the death-bed of his father, who, in a speech which is 

 given in Sze-Ma-Tscen's autobiography, exhorted him to continue the 

 labours of historical research in which he was himself interrupted 

 by death, reminded him that their ancestors from the time of the 

 third dynasty had constantly distinguished themselves in the study of 

 history, and said that the proudest triumph of a son was to reflect 

 back on his parents the glory of a celebrated name. Sze-Ma-Tseen 

 occupied himself, during the three years of mourning for his father, in 

 putting in order the notes he had made of his travels to visit the 

 canals of Yu ; and making other preparations for his literary labours, 

 and was appointed in due time the president of the commission. 



In China an historiographer was in those times expected to dis- 

 charge some of the duties which in modern Europe devolve on a 

 popular journalist, to give utterance to his opinions on public men and 

 public measures. In doing so Sze-Ma-Tseen was singularly unfortunate. 

 In the year B.C. 99 he made himself conspicuous by defending against 

 the emperor the General Le-Ling, who having been defeated by the 

 Heung-Neu or Huns, had passed over to their side, intending, Sze-Ma- 

 Tseen maintained, to become in turn treacherous to them. Woo-Te 

 had the injustice to condemn Sze-Ma-Tseen to death, and thought he 



